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9/3 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Punyayashas

I often say that the word "ice cream" or talking about eating ice cream ... is just not the same as eating ice cream, the cold creamyness on a scorching day like today, and getting lost in every lick ...

(which is still not the same as actually doing it ... cause we are still just talking and thinking about it!! ... ad infinitum ... 8) )

Re: 9/3 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Punyayashas

Okay before i post anything... my word you can find some very obscure stuff for images!! Kudos!

Punyayashas had all the right answers but did not understand them fully and so he was bound up by them, still stuck in delusion. The new Buddha was set free when"all buddhas" were taken away.
the best way to experience that ice cream is to let it eat you up! (in this heat it better be fast too)/

Re: 9/3 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Punyayashas

Punyayashas drew his line in the sand, seperating "my mind" and "buddhas". But as soon as we decide to lean on the stool labeled "Buddhas", "Patriarchs", or "Dharmas" we end up face down in the mud - even still we wallow as if we were still upright. Why try to rip apart the trees, the sky, the flowers, the garbage to understand formlessness? The puddle had already settled before we stuck our hands in to try and make it calmer. Get your hands out and calm down!

All Buddhas are indeed wrong, no Buddha has ever called themselves a Buddha, to do so would be blasphemy. "We are just who we are where we are right now, and can never be anyone else", says Ikkyu. For that reason I take issue with Hixon, stating Zen is black and scented with aloeswood. Sometimes it is red and scented with roses, sometimes blue and a salt-breeze, sometimes brown and smelling of excrement. If we set aside what color is what, what smell is what, we miss the boat and sink back into the mud hole, thinking that IT smells of aloeswood.

I was frustrated with my impatience in sitting zazen today, less so now.

Re: 9/3 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Punyayashas

One of the patterns I have noticed is the next patriarch often shows up with all the answers, or at least what seem like all the answers, and the current living Buddha shoots him down in some way, makes him transcend all those answers. And what I keep getting out of this, over and over again, is that even if you have all the right answers you still haven't realized the BIg Truth. I find this very humbling, and I find that seeing these new patriarchs get humbled in this way makes them very approachable. So, even if these are made up stories, what makes a fairy tale good is that you can relate to the hero, and I find I can relate to these guys.

Keizan: Good people, clarify and discern carefully and do not settle the essential point by using small virtue, small wisdom, your own views, or old attitudes.

You gotta go BIG.

Hixon: "All Buddhas" is falsification, and so is all religions are one. It is important to note there are differences, even when they are all the same empty with therefore no separation. So you gotta go small, too.

Also from Hixon (and what Jundo keeps telling us):

The living Buddha is fully living human life!

A question, though: Towards the end of the first paragraph in Hixon's commentary he calls "This natural non-duality humorous..." What's he mean by humorous?

Re: 9/3 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Punyayashas

This week’s readings demonstrate the difficulty inherent in using words to describe something that is understood fully only when experienced directly. This week I really appreciate having both texts to “dance” with, as the authors’ use of words is just different enough to make understanding a bit easier or more smooth.

Hixon’s “Patience delights in transparent manifestation, not in formlessness” - wow! And that transmission between Parshva and Punyayashas took place “wordlessly, free from every notion” resonates with me.

Cook’s discussion on page 78 of the Way not being grasped through reason or by using the mind is so clear. What a great way to describe arriving “fully at this place” - reversing one’s original thinking and blocking one’s own views.

Re: 9/3 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Punyayashas

"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form". Well, we can say it (often) and mentally observe as it dissolves an ice cream along with its eater. Punyayashas had grasped the concept, and that's where he was before his 21-day super-sit. Somewhere during that time he followed Keizan's traffic directions:

Re: 9/3 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Punyayashas

Along with Alanla I've been noticing a pattern among the Patriarchs: they seem to be convinced they know-it-all until the Master snaps their nose. Someitmes it is just that snap that wakes them, sometimes like with Punyayashas it makes one go and consider their position for a while. I get the feeling that the Masters have gotten together (well yeah!!!! :roll: ) and have given us these examples of their awakening as a teaching. There was no need except for our edification to see that it wasn't the same for "all Buddhas" it is always just Buddha, all the same.

Re: 9/3 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Punyayashas

Re: 9/3 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Punyayashas

I too have been feeling a pattern emerge in these readings, as I read this morning I kept thinking of the familiarity in the stories, and then felt that it was not just in the readings of the Patriarchs, but it is a feeling I have had lately concerning all of this practice.
My practice, your practice, all practice. I have lately been feeling my mind going over the same things over and over like a broken record.

A vision comes to mind of a student before the teacher, and the teacher slapping the student upside the head while yelling KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID! Then the student rushing off to figure it out, "What does he mean?" The student reads a couple books, and "Sits with it", then comes back before his teacher where the cycle begins again. :roll:

Every time I read the words of my Teachers I think "Jee whiz that sounds familiar, I am sure I heard that before, YET WOW, thats just what I needed to hear today!" "I must be all better now, thank you" :mrgreen:
*sigh* back to thinking today this, tommorow that , blah blah........ooooooooo Double Rainbow!!! what does it mean man!!

O.k. I'm just getting silly now, but I gotta roll with it, once again I have thought too much for today, I'm sure I need to go do the dishes again, or walk the dog, or..................
Good day everyone
~ Dave.

Re: 9/3 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Punyayashas

Great teaching on how abstractions and concepts can lead us astray. We set up an idea of what awakening is and that becomes a barrier to awakening. We have a concept what Buddha is and we don't see the dawn breaking, hear the birds speaking, hear the wooden drum sounding.

Loved the line in Hixon when Punyayshas says, "My mind does not come or go. My mind does not dwell anywhere," Parshva responds, "You seem somewhat disoriented." Perhaps just a clever retort, but to me it indicates how Punyayshas is clinging to an idea not what is or as Suzuki Roshsi would say, "Seeing things as it is."